All right, welcome to week 26. This will be the last week that we have together for this first. Sorry, I'm going to start over. Welcome back to lesson 26. This will be our last time together in this teaching series until we put out part two, and I hope you've enjoyed it. I really hope it's blessed your life. Again, I'd really love to hear a testimony about what God's doing in your life through this teaching, and always love celebrating what Jesus is up to in the lives of his people. Today, I want to talk to you about what it takes to persevere and to finish the race that you've begun.
There's going to be many years in front of you now, the rest of your life, to grow in God and to really learn and learn about him and learn how to live like him, and it's just going to be an exciting journey. It's only the beginning, and like I opened up with, a path of the righteous is like the morning sun, which grows brighter and brighter until the fullness of day. That's what you have in store for you. The sun only gets higher in the sky. It's not to say that there won't be storm clouds that'll come through. It's not to say that there won't be opposition along the way.
We've talked about all of that, but you're going to make it, and you're going to love what you look back at over your life at the end of your days. You're going to love what Jesus did in you, and you're going to love him for all eternity because of it. So I just want to close out by talking about a few things in terms of making goals. Where do we go from here? How do I keep pressing on and thriving in the Lord? How do I do this life in such a way that I don't fall by the wayside? I've been walking with Jesus for 37 years, and I've watched a lot of dear friends who began so strong in the Lord and so excited about what God was doing in their lives, and then something happened along the way.
They found some strife came up, some issues, and they went right back to their old life or wandered away from the Lord and don't don't walk with them anymore. That breaks my heart. I don't want that to happen for you. So the goal of our instruction, we said, as Paul said to Timothy, the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Everything about all of the other issues that we're working on, why is it that we're working on our sin issues in our life? Why is it that we're growing in our understanding of the Word of God and how to live with God?
Why is it that we worship? Why is it that we pray? Why is it that we walk closely with Jesus no matter what? It's all so that we can be reconformed back into the image of the God who is love. That's the goal of everything. So from here on out for the rest of your life, whatever you learn about the Lord, if it's not turning your heart toward being a better lover of God and a better lover of people, then make sure it gets categorized the right way and make sure that you're growing in those things. It's how good have we become at love.
Ten years from now, you're going to find it easier to forgive people. You're going to find that you're less offendable. You're going to find that it's easier for you to enter into the presence of God and worship Him and pray to Him and have conversation with Him. You're going to find that you're going to learn how to pray without ceasing, which means a constant communion with Him. You're only going to grow in all of those things. You're going to love God better. You're going to love His people better. You're also going to learn how to love your enemies better.
As you walk with Him, you're going to find it more natural to find that your reflexive response when somebody sins against you is not going to be to respond in anger or some kind of outburst or go inward into depression. You're going to find it easier to feel compassion for them and wonder, why are you doing this to me? That's a sign of growth and you're going to find it easier as you continue to walk closely with Him. So here's what John said in his letter to some friends. 1 John chapter 2. He describes three stages of growth that happened in the life of a believer. And I've experienced these and you'll see these as you grow and you'll observe them and those that are around you in church.
He says, I'm writing to you little children because your sins have been forgiven for His name's sake. We've spent a great deal of time this year talking about how to receive the forgiveness of God, how to run to God instead of run away from Him when you blow it, and how to just live this joyful life of knowing I have a Father in Heaven who is a forgiver. Then he says, I write to you fathers. That would be the most mature stage that you could grow to because you've known Him who is from the beginning. You've got this rich, intimate knowledge of God. You walk with Him as a friend.
You walk with Him in a way where you kind of already know His heart. You don't have to ask Him as many questions about, hey, what do you think about this? Because you already know. Because you've been walking with Him for a while. Not because you got it all figured out, but you understand His heart because you're matured in your faith. And eventually what happens and a goal for you is that you become somebody who can do for you what I've been doing here in this video series and what your mentor or spiritual father or mother has been doing for you by walking with you through this. You too will raise people up.
People who are brand new in Jesus, you're going to be able to walk them and help them grow mature in Christ. Help them overcome those strongholds. Help them learn to know what the love of God's like, what the Father is like, what your purpose is in life as a result of you coming to Christ now. You're going to be able to do all of those things, which is exactly what fathers do for their children in a good, healthy family. Spiritual fathers and mothers do the same thing for their spiritual children. That's your goal. You're going to get to that place.
Then He says, I'm writing to you young men. This would be that in-between stage of growth. We're not brand new in Jesus anymore, but we're also, man, I don't know if I'm ready to disciple people yet and really, you know, be trusted with somebody who's brand new in Christ. I don't know if I'm quite ready to mentor somebody yet, but I am growing and I am getting closer to that. I write to you young men because you have overcome the evil one. So we've talked about recently in this course, we talked about overcoming strongholds and spiritual warfare. And part of your current stage of growth is that you're getting better at overcoming the evil one instead of being overcome by the evil one.
You've learned how to wage weapons of spiritual warfare. And you're finding victory. I'm sure that you're finding victory. Maybe not over everything just yet, but you will. City by city within those strongholds of your heart, you're going to own all of your heart again and you're going to be free and the land's going to be clear of all the vestiges of your old life. That's what it means to overcome the evil one. Then He goes back and it's kind of like a little bit of poetic thing He's doing here. I have written to you children because you know the Father.
I want to pause here for a moment and say we've really spent a good deal of time on this during the year with good reason. I believe the reason why it's important to know God as Father and God as the forgiver is because everything else that we learn in Christ comes back to, can I walk securely with Jesus side by side, knowing who He is to me and who I am to Him. And everything else that I learn about Him fits within that box. So I'll no longer have Him viewed as the angry God who's going to get me when I blow it. I no longer view Him as a distant, unfeeling, uncaring God who doesn't care that I'm in the middle of grief and sorrow right now.
I no longer view God through any of those false lenses that I used to think of. I know Him as Father and I'm so glad to be part of His family. We've really processed that. And if you still struggle with that, please talk to the one that you're walking with. There are other materials that we have to help you really dig in and get free from all of the lies and all of the misconceptions that you might have about the Father. Because without that, like I said, there's really nothing else that will really be known in the best way that you could know it. I've written to you fathers, again, because you've known Him who's from the beginning.
And then he says this, I've written to you young men because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you and you've overcome the evil one. I'm sure that you can recognize that at this stage of your growth in the Lord, you are much stronger in your faith than you were when we first started this journey together. You've learned how to pray better than you did before. You've learned how to press into the area of worship and maybe even learned how to praise God even when you don't feel like it because everything seems to be falling apart around you. You're getting stronger, meaning the devil can't pull you away from the love of God as easily as he used to. They used to be easy to make you stumble and have your mind going every which way but loose.
And now God has come and He's strengthened you so that He's a steadfast and immovable, even in the middle of spiritual warfare. The Word of God abides in you because you've been not just reading it, but absorbing it, and not just absorbing it into your heart, but putting it into practice in your life, the way that you know the Word, which is by experiencing it. That's all becoming true, and those things are only going to increase for the rest of your life. Peter also made his own list of qualities that increase as we grow in the Lord. Peter is my favorite disciple. He is for most people because he seems to always have the wrong thing to say. He's brash and he's bold.
He's loud, strong, and wrong so many times. And yet he grows. He learns. Jesus may rebuke him, but he also gets it. He was the first one to proclaim with his mouth that Jesus was the Son of God. Peter gets it even if he blows it, and he's just like us in that way. So after a lifetime of raising up disciples and Peter's last words, 2 Peter is his last letter that he ever wrote. And for all we know, the last words he ever said, because he was waiting execution when he wrote it, he says, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is 2 Peter chapter 1. Seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. We have everything we need as promises from God through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence, and by those qualities he has granted us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may be partakers of the divine nature. We looked at this. Remember, we're not just people anymore. We've become partakers of the divine nature. You remember from our discussion on communion that we're not just going through a religious ritual when we partake of the Lord's Supper.
We are literally feeding on Christ, that he is strengthening us and we're living by his strength as we go through our days, that we become partakers of that divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world by lust. Now for this reason also, applying all diligence. Now he's going to go through some steps. I'm going to walk us through very quickly, but it takes diligence. For the rest of your life, I pray that you will seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness so that he can add all the other things unto you. Seek first his kingdom. Be diligent.
Don't fail. Don't lag in your faithfulness to the Lord. Don't let yourself go through lengthy seasons where you pull away from the Lord. Instead, press into the Lord when you don't feel like it. Then watch how much stronger you get on the other side, applying all diligence in your faith. All things begin in faith. We begin by the faith that we are now the righteousness of God in Christ, that we are born again of incorruptible seed, that we're not who we used to be, that the one who lives in us is greater than the one who lives in the world, and we already have become righteous.
We are on the inside something that's eternal, and that's just waiting to make its way out in all of our behavior and in our thinking and our emotions. That's what faith begins with. Supply moral excellence to that. We don't behave in a better way because we try harder, but because we have the faith of the Son of God working on the inside, making us behave better on the outside. In that, we apply knowledge. The fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom. If we don't really involve God in our thinking and how we process who He is, what He is, what life is all about, what's right, what's not right, we haven't even begun to learn anything.
So by living with Him, by faith, and by living this moral upright lifestyle, this life of piety, we're really giving ourselves over to the Lord. Now we're beginning to really grow in knowledge. That knowledge, in your knowledge, adds self-control, which means we're no longer easily tripped up into the sins of the flesh and into the misuse of our mouth. That self-control abides in us now because we've grown in all of these things. Now in your self-control, add perseverance. Don't give up. You blew it again. Life came at you fast again.
Don't give up. Don't walk backwards. Don't turn around and go away. Persevere through every storm and every fire. And on the other side of it, you're going to see that you've grown in leaps and bounds just by holding fast to what you already have. It's going to be an amazing thing you're going to experience. And that perseverance, add godliness. You're getting more like Him every day, whether you can see it or not. So much of life that grows happens so slowly and incrementally under our nose that we don't recognize it.
You can think about this when, if you're raising kids, you know, we see them from the womb until they grow to full adults. And I know there are moments with my kids where every day they're growing and I don't notice it, but all of a sudden I realize, wait a minute, you're up to my nose now. You were up to my chin last time I really checked. Or maybe you get a relative that comes to the house. And what's the first thing they say when they come in if they don't see them often? Wow, my, how you've grown because they haven't seen them. We can observe our lives the same way and miss out on the fact that every day, little by little and day by day, God's conforming us to the image of Christ.
Don't take for granted that that's happening and you're becoming more like Him. And your godliness add brotherly kindness. That's where we learn how to give and take, how to give and receive within the body of Christ. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It's a good kind of love. It's not the best kind of love, but it's a good kind of love. I forgive you because I've been forgiven. I extend grace to you because I've received grace from you. I extend my spiritual gifts and I share with you what I have to offer because I need what you have to offer.
That's brotherly kindness. Adding on to that, he says love. There's a Greek word agape. It means unconditional love, which simply means I'm a one-way street of love. I don't need any, I'm not going to love just because I can get something from somebody. I'm going to love because I've been remade into the image of God who is love and he's a one-way street of generosity and giving and that's the God that we've become like. So we add love. That's the goal of our instruction is that kind of love. If these qualities of yours, he goes on to say, and they're increasing, they render you neither useless or unfruitful in the true knowledge of Jesus Christ.
So they're in you, they're yours, and they're increasing. Always be growing. The point of all of this, always be growing, always be increasing. Never fall for the trap of believing, well, I know just, I know enough now or I'm righteous enough now. I'm all good. There's always something that Jesus is working on. We're always growing and improving in some kind of way. All living things are always replenishing and being renewed inside and always growing in some way. Although, for example, my physical body is finished growing. My mind is not finished growing.
My heart's not finished growing. My spirit is not finished growing. Always increase, always grow, and let what already exists in you find its way into your life and behavior in every way. I want to close out this course by that exhortation, and I'm going to read one of my favorite scriptures. It's a beloved passage of scripture found in Paul's letter to the Philippians, which if you haven't read it yet, I just want to recommend it to you. Maybe it's your next read if you're in the middle right now. Don't know where to go next.
Consider that Paul wrote this letter to his church in Philippi. They were beloved to him. For some reason, he really, really loved these people. I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but it seems like this was Paul's favorite. Something about that community. And he wrote it while he was in prison in a place called the Mamertine Dungeon, which was, you know, ugly, walls dripping, rat infested, stale bread. It was just a holding place, really, for those that were waiting for execution. Paul was to appear before Caesar, and if Caesar liked what he said, he might go free.
If Caesar didn't like what he said, he would be executed that day. For Paul's sake, he did come out of prison this time, but he wrote it in that context, and he says something. He says either rejoice or joy or joyful 17 times in four chapters. That's his context, and he's writing to these people in prison. Paul has on his mind, I'm concerned about you, and I want to make sure you guys are all doing okay, thriving in the Lord. Paul had made it to that last stage of maturity where he is a one-way street of love. He's abandoned.
He's all on his own. He's in prison, and he's still thinking about how can I bless and encourage the people who are hundreds of miles away from me right now in their faith. And he wrote these words, not that I have already attained or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ. Jesus got a hold of you, and now he's looking for you to grab hold of him and not let go for the rest of your days. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what's behind and pressing forward to what lies ahead.
I press on for the goal of the upward call and the prize of God in Christ Jesus. What's the secret? Leave what's behind behind you. Remember when we talked about forgiveness? His mercies are new every morning because his faithfulness is so great. Leave what's behind. Don't let the past catch up with you and overtake you. It can't do that if you're always pressing on for the mark of the high call of God in Christ Jesus. The only way to visit the past is to turn away from the Lord and go back to it.
Right now, keep your eyes on Jesus. He's the author of your faith. He's going to be the perfecter of your faith. Keep your eyes on him and grab hold of him and keep pressing on. Always be growing. Always become more loving. Always become more serving. Always become more filled with gratitude and love for God and love for his people. And in that, you can't fail. You really can't go short. I've never met anybody who stayed a part of the fellowship of the saints and who remained with Christ no matter what came up and no matter what things, obstacles came their way, no matter what sin came to the surface.
I've never met anybody who fell away from walking with Christ if they stayed a part of a solid community of believers who would encourage them and kept their eyes on Jesus even when you can't see him. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but as the old saying goes, above the clouds, the sun is always shining. You can always keep your eyes on Jesus even when the fog of circumstances has set in or the storms of life have come and hidden the sun from view. You can always keep a direction toward the Lord. Even if it means you stop and hold your ground and you're not taking any steps, you're still advancing because the enemy's not pushing you back into the darkness. Therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude.
And if anything else, you have a different attitude. God will reveal that to you. But let us keep living by the same standard to which we have attained. In other words, don't go backwards. Hold on to what you've got and then keep pressing in for what's more. I love you. And I'm really, really glad that we've had a time to walk together with the Lord like this in due season. Perhaps there'll be a part two from this. That'll be largely based on your feedback. If you would like more to help you grow further in the Lord, I'm happy to record another series and we'll leave that up to you.
For now, I pray that you press in, that you grow in the Lord. And I just want to bless you as we close out. Father, I bless my brother, sister in Christ. And I pray first of all, that I'll see them in heavenly places and we'll live together in paradise. I pray that they will persevere and endure until the end and be saved once and for all. I pray that their faith will prevail in times of dryness, in times of trial, in times of fire. I pray that not only will their faith not fail, but it'll only grow.
May everything that the enemy intends for evil only turn around for their good. May they be found pressing in after you and running after you with all their heart, worshiping with all their mind, soul, strength, worshiping you and praising you. May they be found in the secret place, abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. May they dwell in that place and always abide with you for all of their days. I pray this will only be the launching pad for a beautiful life in Christ. Amen. I love you. God bless you.
And I hope to meet you someday if I haven't already.